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A “Sermon by a Boy” for the meeting of the brothers of the Little Oratory

My dear brothers; this afternoon it seemed appropriate to speak on a topic I have been looking into during this liturgical period where we meditate upon the four last things. In recent reading, I was introduced to a position I was previously unfamiliar with on the topic of the fires of damnation and purgatory. A position which attempts to understand these fires as the divine love.

The initial thought many of you may have is the same as the first thought that I myself had. How could the tormenting fire of hell and the purifying fire of purgatory be divine love? For is it not divine love which the saints enjoy in the beatific vision? How could this same love be that which torments the damned and which purifies the not yet beatified? An old maxim of the Theologians appears to be relevant here. “That which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver”. The damned receive this perfect and infinite love as torment because they reject it. The souls undergoing their purification in purgatory receive this love as the purifying fire by which they are prepared for the eternal ecstasy of beholding the ineffable face to face.

                The symbolism of the presence of God as fire has much history within both Scripture and Tradition. In Exodus, God is the pillar of fire which guided Israel in the wilderness. In the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost as if fire. In Hebrews, God is identified as a consuming fire (Heb 12:29). We find in great luminaries of Catholic tradition the understanding of the divine love as fire. From Augustine, St Catherine of Siena, St Padre Pio, St Gemma Galgani, St John of the Cross, and St Therese of Lisieux all seem in invoke this imagery in various places within their work or prayers attributed to them.

                I suppose the most pertinent question to offering this suggestion to you, my brothers, is the question as to whether it is at all possible that love could be received as torment. Let us begin with what is more known to us, to move to what is less known. Could the love of a parent or a friend be received by the recipient as negative or tormenting? Take the example of a teenager rebelling against their parent’s boundaries and rules and by this has fallen into an unsavory crowd. The child’s parents impose a curfew, forbid them from seeing their new “friends”, and closely monitor them. They do this as an act of love. However, would it not be true to say that the child would receive these actions as tormenting? An imposition of the parents upon one of the golden calves of modernity, “autonomy”. Whilst amongst friends, do not moral and intellectual criticism and critique sometimes be received as not an act of love but one of hatred?  The answer to both of these questions appears in the affirmative. So, could the same not be true for the infinite and perfect love of God?

                It is my suggestion brothers, one which I believe has sufficient warrant in the tradition even though it lacks firm theological proof, that we ought to understand the eternal fire of hell and the purifying fire of Purgatory as divine love. The reprobate suffers torment from this love because they have deliberately rejected love, but as it is gratuitously given by God, who can never cease to love his creature, they suffer it as torment proportionate to their wretched guilt which has condemned them. The faithful undergoing purification receives this same fire, this all-consuming love, as the purification of their soul in order to prepare themselves for true intimacy with the divine for all eternity. Finally, the saints receive this same love as the ultimate and perfect union between creature and creator. Damnation, purification, and deification are not three separate acts of God, but they are one act. The same act of love which deifies the saints purifies the Church suffering in preparation for deification and torments the damned in proportion to their guilt.


                Peace be with you, my brothers.

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